Midnight Express

Background:

“I've spent a great deal of my life doing independent film and that is partly because the subject matter interests me and partly because that is the basis of the film industry. That's where the filmmakers come from. It's where they start and sometimes it’s where they should have stayed.” John Hurt

Academy Award nominated and BAFTA Award winning British actor John Hurt has created a reputation for himself as one of Britain's most prestigious and prolific character actors. With a versatile career spanning more than 40 years, John first attracted attention in Fred Zinnemann's Academy Award winning “A Man for All Seasons” (1966) and Richard Fleischer's “10 Rillington Place” (1971), from which he earned a BAFTA nomination. He was launched to fame as the star of the acclaimed British TV movie “The Naked Civil Servant” (1975) and further boasted his popularity by picking up an Oscar nomination for his supporting role as a drugged-out hippie in Alan Parker's “Midnight Express” (1978). The role also brought the actor a Golden Globe Award and a BAFTA Film Award. He took home his Best Actor Oscar nomination and another BAFTA Award for playing John Merrick in David Lynch's “The Elephant Man” (1980). Other remarkable roles include Winston Smith in Michael Radford's “Nineteen Eighty-Four” (1984, won a Valladolid International Film Festival Award and a Fantasporto Award), the experienced murderer in “The Hit” (1984, nabbed a Mystfest Award), a jockey with cancer in “Champions” (1984) and a British colonel in “White Mischief” (1987). He also won a British Independent Film nomination and a Chicago International Film Festival Award for his work in Richard Kwietniowski's “Love and Death on Long Island” (1997). Hurt also played roles in “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” (2001) and “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” (2004), “Hellboy” (2004), “The Skeleton Key” (2005) and “V for Vendetta” (2005). The performer is set to act in no less than nine upcoming projects, including the installment “Hellboy 2: The Golden Army” (2008), Kwietniowski's “No One Gets Off in This Town” (2008) and Steven Spielberg's “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” (2008).

Now sober, Hurt once struggled with alcohol. In 1991, he was banned from driving for a year and fined $344 after being charged with drunken and dangerous driving in Dublin. He earned an honorary degree from the University of Derby in January 2002 and an honorary degree of Letters from the University of Hull in January 2006. As for his married life, Hurt has been married four times. He was married to first wife Annette Robertson from 1962 to 1964 and second wife Donna Peacock from September 1984 to January 1990. He and third wife Jo Dalton, whom he was married to for six years from 1990 to 1996, have two sons together, Nicolas and Alexander. Hurt is now the husband of Ann Rees Meyers. He also had a long-term relationship with French model Marie-Lise Volpeliere-Pierrot (together from 1967 until her death in 1983) and lived with Sarah Owen, who was twenty years his junior, in County Wicklow, Ireland.

The Bluebird

Childhood and Family:

John Vincent Hurt was born on January 22, 1940, in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, England. He was the youngest of three children to Arnold Herbert Hurt, a mathematician who became an Anglican clergyman, and Phyllis Hurt, an engineer and one-time actress. He has a brother, Michael, and an adopted sister, Monica. John had a strict upbringing and was not allowed to go to the movies or play with local kids because his parents thought that they were “too common.” When John was 8, he was sent to the Anglo-Catholic St. Michaels prep school at Sevenoaks in Kent. It was while he was there that young John decided to become an actor and got his first taste of stage acting as a girl in a school production of “The Bluebird” (L'Oiseau Bleu). When John was 12, his family relocated to Grimsby.

Despite an early love for acting, his parents sent John to the Grimsby Art School (now the East Coast School of Art & Design), with the hope that their son would become an art teacher. At age 19, he won a scholarship to study for an Art Teachers Diploma (ATD) at Central St Martins College in Holborn, London. When he could not manage to get another scholarship to art school, John returned to his earlier passion, acting, and was accepted into the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in 1960, where he trained for two years.

John married for the first time at age 22, to actress Annette Robertson. They divorced in 1964, after just eight months when John found out she faked a pregnancy. He married Texas actress Donna Peacock on September 6, 1984. The couple then moved to Kenya. They divorced in January 1990. Shortly thereafter, John married American film production assistant Jo Dalton on January 24, 1990. They met on the set of “Scandal” (1989) and had two sons together, Alexander John Vincent Hurt on February 6, 1990, and Nicholas Hurt on February 5, 1993. The marriage ended in 1996. John married Ann Rees Meyers, an advertising film producer, in March 2005.

Hellboy

Career:

In 1962, John Hurt made his professional stage debut in a London production of “Infanticide in the House of Fred Ginger.” Later that same year, he snagged his first screen role as Phil in the ill-received British drama “The Wild and the Willing,” based on a play by Laurence Doble. Hurt gained praise the next year in Harold Pinter's “The Dwarfs,” and picked up a Variety Club for Most Promising Newcomer. He went on to star in the title role of “Hamp” on Broadway in 1965, but it was his performance in a London production of “Little Malcolm and His Struggle Against the Eunuch” in 1966 that put him on the radar of director Fred Zinnemann who then cast him in the Judas role of Richard Rich in the big screen version of “A Man for All Seasons” (also 1966). The biographical film won six Academy Awards and brought the young actor a great deal of exposure.

More film work followed after the breakthrough performance, including Tony Richardson's “The Sailor from Gibraltar” (1967), John Huston's “Sinful Davey” (1969), in which John portrayed the title role of a 19th-century Scottish highwayman, and J Lee Thompson's “Before Winter Comes” (1969). However, it was his neurotic role as Timothy John Evans, a mentally challenged young man who was wrongly accused of murder, in the Richard Fleischer-helmed “10 Rillington Place” (1971) that first showed the actor's signature talent to portray mental torment. For his effort, Hurt was nominated for a BAFTA in the category of Best Supporting Actor. He resurfaced on a London stage in Pinter's revivals of “The Caretaker” (1972) and “The Dumb Waiter” (1973) and acted in the Royal Shakespeare Company production of Tom Stoppard's “Travesties” (1974), as Tristran Tzara. John achieved stardom in the mid-1970s thanks to his landmark portrayal of Quentin Crisp in the praised British TV-film “The Naked Civil Servant” (1975) The role brought Hurt a 1976 BAFTA for Best Actor.

After offering a fascinating turn as Caligula in the BBC miniseries adaptation of “I, Claudius” (1976) and making his American TV debut in “Spectre” (NBC, 1977), directed by Clive Donner, the talented performer once again scored critical success with his scene-stealing turn as the ill-fated heroin addicted convict in Alan Parker's “Midnight Express,” a biopic film starring Brad Davis as Billy Hayes, a man who is caught smuggling drugs out of Turkey and thrown into prison. For his effort, Hurt was handed a Golden Globe and a BAFTA Film for Best Supporting Actor and his first Oscar nomination. The rest of the decade saw Hurt team up with producer Jeremy Thomas in Jerzy Skolimowski's “The Shout” (1978), make his first U.S. feature with Ralph Bakshi''s animated adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkein's “The Lord of the Rings” (also 1978), where he voiced Aragon, and play the role of Cane in Ridley Scott's “Alien” (1979), which also marked Hurt's first partnership with producer Walter Hill.

Hurt received his next Oscar nomination, this time for Best Actor in a Leading Role, for his work in David Lynch's “The Elephant Man” (1980). Playing the disfigured John Merrick, the actor also won a BAFTA Award and a Golden Globe nomination for Best Motion Picture Actor – Drama. He was then seen in the huge failure “Heaven's Gate” (1980), Mel Brooks' “History of the World: Part 1” (1981), “Night Crossing” (1981), “Partners” (1982, opposite Ryan O'Neal) and “The Osterman Weekend” (1983), Hurt may be best recognized as criminal Winston Smith in the film adaptation of “Nineteen Eighty-Four” (1984), directed by Michael Radford. His performance was critically applauded and he was awarded a Valladolid International Film Festival, a Fantasporto and an Evening Standard British Film for Best Actor. In addition, he delivered memorable turns as the experienced assassin in Stephen Frears' menacing “The Hit,” from which he nabbed a Mystfest for Best Actor, as a British jockey diagnosed with cancer in John Irvin's “Champions” (also 1984) and as the concise British colonel in Radford's “White Mischief” (1987). He closed out the 1980s with an outstanding turn as Dr Stephen Ward in Michael Caton-Jones' feature directorial debut, “Scandal,” and a supporting part in Anthony Simmons' thriller “Little Sweetheart” (both 1989). Hurt also narrated several documentaries like “A World of Difference” (1981, TV) and “Observations Under the Volcano” (1984), as well as played the title role of the narrator in the NBC children's fantasy series “ The Storyteller” (1988).

Hurt could next seen acting in such films as Jim Sheridan's “The Field” (1990), from which he earned a BAFTA Film nomination for his supporting role as Bird' O'Donnell, David S. Ward's “King Ralph” (1991), “Rob Roy” (1995), which reunited him with director Michael Caton-Jones, Walter Hill's “Wild Bill” (1995), “Two Nudes Bathing” (1995) and Robert Zemeckis' “Contact” (1997). His collaboration with first time director Richard Kwietniowski in “Love and Death on Long Island” (1997), won Hurt a British Independent Film nomination for Best Performance by a British Actor in an Independent Film and the Chicago International Film Festival FIPRESCI Prize - Special Mention, shared with the director. Other first timers he worked with include Jeremy Thomas in “All the Little Animals” (1998), Matthew Modine in “If... Dog...Rabbit” (1999) and Janusz Kaminski in “Lost Souls” (2000).

Hurt starred as Krapp in the independent film “Krapp's Last Tape” (2000), which screened at various film festivals before shown on television, supplied his voice for the Disney animated movie “The Tigger Movie” (2000), had an important supporting role in “Captain Corelli's Mandolin” (2001), portrayed wand seller Mr. Ollivander on “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” (2001), supported Crispin Glover and Vanessa Redgrave for the drama “Crime and Punishment” (2002) and reunited with director Richard Kwietniowski for “Owning Mahowny” (2003). After narrating the Lars von Trier-helmed “Dogville” (2004), he appeared as Professor “Broom” Bruttenholm on the comic book adaptation “Hellboy” (2004), opposite Ron Perlman and Selma Blair. The same year also saw the actor reprise his role of Mr. Ollivander in “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.” 2005 and 2006 found roles in the supernatural thriller “The Skeleton Key” (2005, with Kate Hudson), “V for Vendetta” (2005), “Shooting Dogs” (2005) and “Perfume: The Story of a Murderer” (2006, (unaccredited, narrator). More recently, in 2007, he provided the voice of Professor Trevor 'Broom' Bruttenholm for “Hellboy Animated: Blood and Iron” (TV), acted in Jane Birkin's “Boxes” as well as guest starred in an episode of the TV show “Masters of Science Fiction.”

The 67-year-old actor will play various roles in the upcoming films “Outlander” (2007), opposite James Caviezel, Sophia Myles and Jack Huston, Malcolm Venville's “44 Inch Chest” (2007), Alessandro Baricco's “Lezione 21” (2008), “The Oxford Murders” (2008), Steven Spielberg's “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” (2008), Richard Kwietniowski's “No One Gets Off in This Town” (2008), “Recount” (2008, TV) and “Angel Makers” (2008), with Helen Mirren. He is also set to reprise his role of the scientist Trevor 'Broom' Bruttenholm for the sequel “Hellboy 2: The Golden Army” (2008).

Awards:

• British Independent Film: Richard Harris Award, 2003

• DVD Exclusive: Best Audio Commentary (New for DVD), “Alien,” 2003

• Verona Love Screens Film Festival: Best Actor, “Night Train,” 1999

• London Critics Circle Film: Dilys Powell Award, 1999

• Chicago International Film Festival: FIPRESCI Prize - Special Mention, “Love and Death on Long Island,” 1997

• Joseph Plateau: Joseph Plateau Life Achievement Award, 1994

• Fantasporto: International Fantasy Film, Best Actor, “Nineteen Eighty-Four,” 1985

• Evening Standard British Film: Best Actor, “Nineteen Eighty-Four,” 1985 (also for “Champions,” 1984 and “The Hit,” 1984)

• Mystfest: Best Actor, “The Hit,” 1984

• Valladolid International Film Festival: Best Actor, “Nineteen Eighty-Four,” 1984

• BAFTA Film: Best Actor, “The Elephant Man,” 1981

• Golden Globe: Best Motion Picture Actor in a Supporting Role, “Midnight Express,” 1979

• BAFTA Film: Best Supporting Actor, “Midnight Express,” 1979

• BAFTA TV: Best Actor, “The Naked Civil Servant,” 1976